The phrase mind-independent existence speaks loosely. It is both ambiguous between (at least) things that are direct products of the mind, like  imaginary items such as unicorns,  and things which are abstract or ideal, such as numbers or  intentional content, and it is ambiguous as to how to treat the existential status of things like beliefs and even minds themselves. Once we consider that even opinions illusions and possiblities *are* in some sense then it might be easier to say that existence is primarily to be identified with presence, and the real question is the relationship of being to time.

The emphasis on mind independence is peculiarly modern and mired mostly in problems having to do with skepticism. One becomes early on in modernity worried about the relationship of hypotheticals to things. After all, Kempner, Newton, and Einstein all have pictures of planetary motion, but which one is "real", that is, which one is not merely a conception but bears some final authoritative relationship to the physical world outside of the conception? This relationship of representation to world should not be identified with existence full stop.

Last edited by iwpoe (7/11/2016 10:01 am)

iwpoe wrote:

The emphasis on mind independence is peculiarly modern and mired mostly in problems having to do with skepticism. One becomes early on in modernity worried about the relationship of hypotheticals to things. After all, Kempner, Newton, and Einstein all have pictures of planetary motion, but which one is "real", that is, which one is not merely a conception but bears some final authoritative relationship to the physical world outside of the conception? This relationship of representation to world should not be identified with existence full stop.

I agree with Poe here in that modernly I would be a bit nervous about using the idea of "mind-independent." As it is used today, I cannot see a Thomist using it, because they certainly did not believe that there was any real thing that in any meaningful sense existed independently of mind. This makes mind seem like a product. For the Thomist, mind is, so to speak, hyper-reality - at least as I interpret Thomists. This is why there is a kernel of truth in "I think; therefore, I am." The mind to us can seem almost superfluous or an add on because we perceive everything directly save for our own selves as either not having/being minds or having minds but being inaccessible to us and highly conditional upon those things that do not seem to be linked to mind, such as body (e.g. like when someone is in a comma or a child in the womb - it is not clear in what sense they can safely be said to be/have minds and mind seems conditioned on purely physical things).

For A-T, though, the common opinion of man that mind is our chiefest gift, strength and asset in the natural world is well grounded, exactly because all things are in a sense by nature products of mind and subordinated to it. The artificial thing chiefly owes its existence to mind; and if we can see that the universe owes its existence similarly to the Divine Mind, then we can also see that what is most truly "mind-independent" is actually rather more likely to be the unreal.

Last edited by Timocrates (7/23/2016 5:27 pm)

John West wrote:

Strictly, God isn't a mind. That's just an (admittedly important) analogy.

I actually have to disagree with that. We must speak about God in our words and ideas; and of them, I think mind is the best, even effective during hyper-skeptical philosophical periods like today, exactly because it renders mind so almost unfathomably mysterious: whatever it is, it is unlike just about anything or everything else we can think or speak of.

Today, we of course laud science: but that is just mind. There is a science of ___ (everything), though these things have no science of themselves. Yet we understand them; and because we understand them, we control them.

Like Dr. Feser is fond of saying, we can sweep mind under the rug but that pile just keeps becoming glaringly larger.

That being said, I am not opposed to talking about - as we do today - "mind-independent realities," etc. I only mean to warn that in the historic Medieval context of Scholastic philosophers that is almost certainly going to be problematic, especially when we try to interpret them - it will be and is true also of Aristotle who, as I said, argued that mind is hyperly real and what is contrary to mind is also going to be most unreal.

John West wrote:

I actually have to disagree with that. We must speak about God in our words and ideas; and of them, I think mind is the best, even effective during hyper-skeptical philosophical periods like today, exactly because it renders mind so almost unfathomably mysterious: whatever it is, it is unlike just about anything or everything else we can think or speak of.

That's cool. 

But don't call that part of A-T. Aquinas doesn't think we can name or predicate God univocally. (He thinks even “HE WHO IS” and “God” name God analogically, and these are far more appropriate to God than “a mind”. See here.)

It may also be incompatible with Divine Simplicity. Like I said, you've struck on an important analogy but, strictly, God isn't a mind.

Emphases mine. I don't think I said anywhere that God is a mind.

Last edited by Timocrates (7/24/2016 8:52 pm)